It turns out that saving the world is a lot more complicated, as you will see if you are among the 14 million, on average, who have been tuning in each week to “Heroes” since its premiere last September, and wouldn’t think of missing tonight’s episode (9 p.m. on NBC/4).

It is one of the best yet. One character will die. And another might die.

Telling you that a character will die doesn’t spoil anything either since you will never guess who it is, no matter how closely you have been paying attention.

If you’ve been following the show, then you are probably aware that the action – or at least some it – has been steering toward Odessa, Texas – home of cheerleader Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) and her grim-faced father (Jack Coleman).

Hiro Nakamura (Masi Oka) and his friend, Ando Masahashi (James Kyson Lee), are already nearby – in Midland – although Hiro has temporarily flown the coop (last week he tele-transported out of there to run an errand, basically to save a waitress’s life).

He’s not in tonight’s episode very much. And one of my favorite “Heroes” characters – the cop who can read minds, Matt Parkman (Greg Grunberg) – is nowhere to be seen.

Tonight’s episode, entitled “Homecoming,” belongs mainly to Claire and Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia), the one hero, among all of them, who has been the most intent on finding the cheerleader and saving her (although he’s not certain from what, or whom).

Meanwhile, over in India, Mohinder Suresh (Sendhil Ramamurthy) will take a giant step toward learning why a little Indian boy keeps visiting him in his dreams. The reason has everything to do with the research Suresh’s father was conducting into the human genome before he was killed at the outset of the season.

This is all very intriguing stuff – enough to have kept me hooked on “Heroes” through nine episodes, including tonight’s.

If there is a flaw to this or any other of the many serials now on network TV, it is this: I don’t see how anyone who has not yet watched “Heroes” can join the series at this point without finding it impossible to understand.

“Heroes” will take a break from new episodes in early December.

New episodes are not scheduled to resume until Jan. 22. That means NBC has an opportunity, if it chooses to take advantage of it, to win new fans by repeating key episodes for six Mondays (or maybe five, since one of the Mondays is Christmas).

It would be a heroic gesture in support of the best new show NBC has had in years.